Chapter 9 #2
Quinn subtly moved to the side, bumping Grady’s hip with his own. His partner had that effect on people, and sometimes, when someone was being recalcitrant, it was useful. Right now, it wasn’t. “Miss Gloria, could you describe her for us?” he asked gently.
“She’s an older lady with white hair, and she has one of those walker things? She smells like… like… glue?”
“Glue?” Grady questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Matt shrugged. “I-I think so?”
Quinn turned to Grady and murmured in his ear, “Can you go see about a warrant for the PO box?”
Grady’s expression said he knew exactly what Quinn was doing, but he fished his phone out of his pocket and left the room.
“He's intense,” Matt said.
Quinn smiled briefly. “Do you happen to have an address on file for Miss Gloria?” he asked.
“I think so. I'll check.”
It only took a few minutes to get the information. Quinn wasn't sure what to think about how easy it was. Nothing thus far had been. Either they'd gotten lucky, or they were about to experience yet more questions than answers.
He went in search of Grady, the address burning a hole in his pocket.
Peyton kneaded the dough on the counter, the repetitive motions soothing. His mother, Theresa, hummed a song as she cut her dough into small balls and lined them up. There was something about being in his childhood home that made all his problems seem smaller. Less likely to swallow him whole.
“Rosemary or thyme?” Theresa asked.
“Rosemary.” Peyton handed over the dough and then checked the last batch of it. It looked ready, so he added more flour to the counter and then scooped it out. It landed on the surface with a plop , and flour lightly coated them both.
Peyton blew a piece of his hair out of his eye. It took a few tries—and some judgemental looks from his mother—but he got it out.
“Time for a haircut?”
“Maybe a trim.” There was nothing wrong with growing out his hair. He’d spent years of his life having to buzz it off, and he was going to enjoy having it longer. Besides, it gave Will, Quinn, and Sebastian something to hold on to. Not that he was going to say that to his mother.
Peyton bit his bottom lip as he slowly rolled out the dough. “Mum, do you…” He trailed off.
“Do I what, dear?” She expertly rolled out and twisted some of the dough balls and scored the others before placing them on the baking tray.
“Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with more than one person at a time?
” He wasn’t in love with any of them, not to that depth—he loved Will because Will was his best friend—but it sounded better than “do you think it’s possible to have sex with three people on the regular and have it mean more than just sex? ”
“I suppose that depends.” She took over kneading Peyton’s dough and patted him on the cheek with a flour-covered hand.
“On what?”
“Well, are you in love with these people separately? Do they all know about each other? Is it a cheating situation? Is it a married couple? Is it an open relationship? Or is it a situation where everybody is in love with each other?”
Peyton blinked, not having expected that detailed of a response. “Um… the last one?” It was the only one that sort of fit. They were all sleeping together… together and separately? Peyton had no idea. The whole situation was on shaky ground in terms of details. “The everybody together one.”
Theresa handed him a ball, and he tried to mimic what she was doing.
The kneading part he’d gotten good at. The fiddly details less so.
He was better than Lucas, at least. And Parker because Parker was an alien that liked to eat raw bread dough—he couldn’t even go for the cookie dough like a normal person—and had been banned from helping with baking-related chores.
“Is this one of those ‘asking for a friend’ situations?” Theresa asked. “Peyton, is there something you want to tell me?”
“Not… not right now,” he said weakly. It was too new, too precarious to talk about it in detail.
He’d just wanted… some kind of sign that what they were doing was okay; that feeling so strongly towards three very different men wasn’t a recipe for disaster.
He didn’t want it to be just sex, but how would anything else work?
Theresa put the last of the bread in the oven and then cradled Peyton’s cheeks in her hands, forcing him to bend down to her small height of five foot two.
“Honey, whoever, or however many people you choose to love is irrelevant. The heart is a big organ; it can love a lot of people at once. There isn’t a limit.
” Her eyes hardened. “But I won’t hear of you being a cheat, a liar, or a home-wrecker. Do you understand me?”
“I wouldn’t, Mum,” Peyton protested. “It’s—it’s not like that.
We’re all single, consenting adults. No cheating, I promise.
” That was more information than he’d wanted to give, but the idea of his mum thinking he could be any of those things sat heavy in his heart, and he didn’t want her to worry about it for even a moment.
He was saved from having to continue the conversation by the loud entrance of Danny and Lucas. He’d never been more grateful for the arrival of his brothers.
“Lunch isn’t ready yet, Ma?” Lucas said, sighing dramatically and draping himself over Peyton. “I’m wasting away to nothing.”
Peyton patted his arm in a patronisingly consoling way. Lucas flicked him on the cheek.
“You look like you had a fight with a bag of flour and lost.”
“Flour is tricksy,” Peyton replied.
“Is your friend joining us, dear?” Theresa asked Danny—the giant of the family—as he bypassed her on his way to the fridge.
“I have a lot of friends,” Danny replied. “You're going to have to be more specific.”
Lucas snorted. “His friend. You mean the loser he was dating?” He slipped onto a stool on the other side of the bench and dragged the cookie jar towards himself.
“He wasn’t a loser,” Danny said absently. “Not… completely?” He pulled out a can of Coke and closed the door of the fridge with the heel of his foot. “And no, he’s not coming. We parted ways.”
“ Parted ways sounds so clinical,” Peyton said. “Are you saying you didn’t dramatically throw him out of your house in a fit worthy of a stage performer? I’m disappointed in you.”
Lucas laughed loudly in Peyton’s ear, and Peyton pushed him off.
“Did you put his clothes out on the sidewalk? Put his PlayStation in the sink?” Lucas cupped the side of his mouth in a staged whisper. “Did you push him out the door butt naked and give the neighbours a show?”
“I can hardly give my opinion since you didn’t see fit to introduce us,” Theresa said mildly.
“Three weeks is not enough time for a ‘meet the parents,’ Mum,” Danny pointed out. He grabbed the jar of cookies from Lucas and twisted it open.
“Hey!”
“Neither of you should be having those,” Theresa chastised. “Lunch is nearly ready.”
“I’m just having one!” Danny protested. He threw one each to Peyton and Lucas.
Peyton smiled innocently at Theresa as he took a bite of the choc-chip deliciousness.
She did not look impressed. “When was the last time any of you introduced me to someone you were dating? Do I have the plague? Do I smell?” She fake gasped, holding her chest. “Is my food not delicious enough?”
“Excuse me!” Lucas protested. “You met mine!”
“You poached one of Danny’s friends; that doesn’t count!” Peyton laughed. “Mum met him before you two were a thing.”
Danny snorted as he put another cookie in his mouth.
“You can’t get in the way of true love.” Lucas sniffed.
Peyton conceded that. Lucas and Tyler were disgustingly in love, and it was still strange to see, considering the other part of the pairing was Tyler.
They were the reason “opposites attract” had been invented.
“I still think you have something over him,” Peyton said.
Because Lucas was still his brother and giving him shit was basically a rule.
“He even looked happy watching you walk down the aisle. Tyler doesn’t smile; it was creepy. ”
“He smiles at me.” Lucas smiled slyly. “He does a lot more than that too.”
Peyton fake gagged, and Lucas flipped him off.
“I suppose I won’t be meeting yours either? You didn’t specify a number. Two? Three? Six?” Theresa asked as Peyton and Lucas wrestled.
Peyton would have had a lot to say about all of that, except that Lucas had frozen with his arm around Peyton, and Danny had gone quiet and was staring at him, and he wished he were anywhere but here. “Thanks, Mum,” he mumbled.
Theresa looked at least a little chagrined. “Sorry, dear.” She pointed at him. “Secrets hardly stay that way in this household anyway.”
“ Six?” Lucas exclaimed. “Since when? I thought we were friends.” He put his elbow on the bench and invaded Peyton’s personal space again. “Tell. Me. Everything.”
“It isn’t six, it’s only three.” In hindsight, admitting that was probably not a good move. “Anyway, there’s nothing to tell,” Peyton said. “Not yet.” Soon, maybe.
“So it’s just sex,” Danny clarified. He pulled out another cookie and threw it over.
Peyton caught it and shoved the whole thing in his mouth as his face flushed red. Christ, were they really going to talk about this in front of their mother?
As though she knew what he was thinking, Theresa shot him a look. “I have six sons. How do you think that happened?”
Lucas sniggered. “Riley got carried in by a stork.”
“Watch your tone, young man. I didn’t birth him, but he’s still mine.”
“I try not to think about it,” Peyton said. Sex and his mother in the same sentence was all kinds of wrong. “And just because you know about sex doesn’t mean I want to talk to you about it. And no, it isn’t just sex. I don’t—I don’t want it to be just sex.”
Theresa took the lid off the pot that was simmering with the soup they were having with the bread. “As long as you’re being safe, that’s all I care about.”
“Yeah, Peyton, did you use condoms?” Lucas teased. “Did you top or bottom? Both?”